CASSETTE BOY Review

CASSETTE BOY is a puzzle action RPG developed by Wonderland Kazakiri inc. and published by Pocketpair Publishing (yes, who made Palworld). Apparently inspired by a quantum mechanics question, this game aims to challenge your ability to think outside the box, no matter if you’re in a fight or dealing with a puzzle.

You play as, well, a boy in a small town. There’s nothing too out of the ordinary in this world, except for one tiny thing: The Moon has vanished. Tasked by mysterious entities and granted a unique ability, you’re now on a world-spanning quest to collect the Moon fragments, help out your hometown, and restore the night sky. The setup is pretty simple, but it soon gets pretty complicated and even emotional at times. I was definitely left intrigued about why the Moon was gone and why this floating cube was guiding me.

CASSETTE BOY’s foundation is based on the classic Legend of Zelda games, looking and playing like the titles found on the Game Boy. Your main tools you’ll be using throughout your adventure are a sword, a bow, bombs, a pair of headphones, and a cassette player. I have to admit that using the sword and bow can feel a little awkward — the sword’s three-hit combo keeps you in place until the last hit, and the bow takes ages to charge to full strength — but they all feel useful in some way.

But why even have something as modern as a cassette player? Well, it soon becomes apparent what the main gimmick is once you obtain the headphones: the ability to shift your perspective. The entire world is rendered in 3D, it just happens to look like pixel art. If the game FEZ rings a bell to you, then this should feel like familiar territory. The unique mechanic that comes with controlling your view is that if you can’t see something, it doesn’t exist until you shift perspective. For example, say you want to go through a door with no key. Just shift your camera so that the door is hidden and walk through it. As for the cassette player, it’s used to shrink you down to explore areas that you couldn’t before.

They are used in the many puzzles found throughout the world and in dungeons, and there are some devious solutions that will make you reevaluate your collection of items. For example, your bombs could be used to destroy walls (although, quite annoyingly, some have little to no indication they can be blown up and are necessary to progress) or as a very, very temporary stepping stool to get to higher places. It was like I was both breaking the game and doing the solution as intended at the same time. What a paradox! There are a ton of secrets, too, from ancient coins and treasure chests to optional challenges to test your brain. I promise you, despite the suggestion, you can come back later, you should have everything you need to solve them. 

Unfortunately, I think the art style makes it a little harder than it should be. Because everything looks flat and in various shades of green, it can be difficult to see important elements or get yourself confused by all the shifts in perspective. Also, there are times when you have to spin your camera around to activate stuff, and that can be a little nauseating. This isn’t helped by the fact that since the world literally revolves around you, you have to stay in the centre, which makes seeing the entire room more difficult than it should be.

As for a mechanic I felt iffy on, I think levelling up is an unnecessary feature. It’s nice to see numbers go up, but you can’t choose what stats you want improved, and if you’re behind on your grinding, it’s just going to make later dungeons a little more annoying. I’d prefer if CASSETTE BOY only let you improve your stats by the optional challenge areas.

However, my biggest complaint is that to save your game, you need to rest at bonfires. It’s all manual, and dying will reset your progress. This can be annoying when you’ve grabbed yourself tons of loot and levelled up, but lose it all in one unlucky encounter because monsters can deal a lot of damage in a short time and your only defensive move, the dive, sucks. I hate having to earn stuff I’ve already earned before, and constantly going back to bonfires can be a drag… or even lethal. Thankfully, the game is kind enough to give you shortcuts like ladders to make these trips quicker to do. For technical issues, well, there weren’t that many, as the game did run very smoothly at 60 FPS, but I didn’t spot enemies getting stuck in walls and jittering around.

CASSETTE BOY has its issues, but I still found myself wanting to keep going and explore more of this strange world. The puzzles will make you think about every use your equipment has and its perspective-shifting mechanic will change how you view the world. However, it is held back by some really frustrating decisions that will make you put it down.